Currently, children may not intuitively understand how to operate telephones and hold conversations. More importantly, current phones do not automatically restrict who may call or receive a call from a child. There are some software apps which allow a parent/guardian to add rules on a phone which block sites that can be visited and restricts calls to specified people. However, for this to function, the child needs to own their own phone with a subscribed service line (or pre-paid plan). For children, this can be expensive and impractical for the amount of usage they are likely to incur.
Typically, children begin to learn phone usage through toy phones. Past inventions for toy phones on the market targeted for kids were very simple in functionality and design, typically having buttons that light up and an empty plastic handset for the kids to hold to emulate having a real phone. But the phones were just toys and did not do much else besides make sound and lights, and have no means to make external network communication and feature enhancements with other devices, especially in the advent of the Internet of Things.
Other technology options that exist today such as mobile phones (iOS, Android, other) and tablets are not really designed for children. Thus a child typically has to use their parent's phone. Arranging times to call or video chat can often be a cumbersome process and usually relies on initiating a connection through a parent's cell phone or tablet and then passing that device to a young child only to have them accidentally hang up the call or drop and damage the device. Alternatively, when kids want to call a family member or friend, they have to ask a parent to help setup a call to that special someone. Some parents are fine having their young children use an iPhone, iPad, Android phone/tablet whenever they want, but allowing them to use products like these increases cases of childhood obesity as kids tend to sit on the couch/chair using these devices, so they are not conducive to getting kids to move around and exercise. Thus, limited usage of such a device may be ideal. These products also tend to be complicated for young children especially at the early age of 2 and beyond.
As can be seen, there is a need for a safe phone and system that allows a child to learn how to use the telephone system under limited usage.